I'm In Utah, Now What?

[TStodard]

We got into Utah early yesterday and stopped off for a few photo ops and were able to find some nice looking rocks. We are leaving Moab in the next hour or so to head across 70 to get to cedar city. My sons loved looking for the ones we found, can anyone suggest a few good spots to stop off along the way? We were really hoping up do u-dig, but they are not open today. Anything would be fine, especially looking forward to some pet wood. We just left the fossil shop here in Moab and the kids are dying to get in the dirt again. Will of course post pics in a bit.

If anyone has any hot spots near Vegas, and along 40/66 through Arizona, NM, and down to Dallas, we've still got 9 days left on this trip and plan on stopping to hunt a few more times.

Thanks guys! Being from New Orleans, this is a new experience, but we are loving it!

[ynot]

The Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque New Mexico have a very fossil laden Mississippian limestone capping them. There are a lot of places to look in the areas that You mentioned. Have You considered western Utah, ie. the House range for trilobites?

Have a good trip.

Tony

Edited May 24, 2015 by ynot

[jpc]

get yourselves out to U-dig anyway. Get directions maybe online, or in Delta. You don't have to go to the pay quarry; there are plenty of other sites around there. Just drive around in the vicinity and look for previously dug holes. The kids might love the true exploration aspect of this. Bring a rock hammer and some chisels. Gray rocks, black rocks, red rocks, yellow rocks. There are trilobites to be found in many layers out there.

Edited May 25, 2015 by jpc

[William Kelly]

The U-Dig site in Utah has an abundance of high quality Trilobite fossils. When we were there we had to leave almost half our findings because it would not fit in our van

[TStodard]

Well, we starting heading towards U-Dig at about 2:30 from cedar city. According to my phone, it was about an hour and a half away from where we were.

Wrong. The quarry is over an hour away from where it was listed. We started a text chain with someone from the company who have is directions to the site and said the workers would stay a little late to ensure we get an hour of so digging in since we were driving so far.

Upon arrival (at 5:45 pm) the lady working had no idea we were coming, but said we could get half an hour in before she left because she had to feed her daughter. Totally understandable, I just wish they'd been open Sunday when I was up that way instead of driving 3 hours each way to dig for 30 minutes. But anyway..

The kids loved it. I didn't have much luck, but I found a few specimens to say that we did it. The best part was after leaving and getting off that gravel road, I decided to pull over and have a look at some random rocks and I found a few beautiful pieces of Pet wood (I think) and a few other oddities. Having no idea what I am doing, it was still a fun time. I will be posting pics later in the week, we still have 7 days on the road. We are hitting Area 51 and the little A'le'inn on our way into Vegas for 2 days, so we may find a rock hounding spot along the way there as well.

Thanks for pushing me to make the trek back to u-Dig guys, it's been my kids favorite part so far.

[ynot]

Just northeast of Joseph city Arizona (west of Holbrook) is an area that You can look for petrified wood. It is part of the Chinle formation same as the petrified forest, except it is open to collecting. It is in the rockhounding Arizona book. About 0.5 miles off the freeway.

Good luck,

Tony